Colonel Pat Lang's Outpost - "A Committee of Correspondence"

14 February 2018

Pieces of the Coup Puzzle Fall Into Place by Publius Tacitus

Most people, including many of you, have the memory of an Alzheimer's patient when it comes to putting events into their proper historical context. So let me help. Do you remember when Donald Trump first started talking about the Presidential election being possibly rigged? That was in early August 2016. He said:

"I'm afraid the election's going to be rigged. I have to be honest," Trump told voters in Ohio, a crucial swing state. . . . Trump added that he has heard "more and more" that the November election will be rigged -- suggesting to his supporters that the outcome of the election is out of the hands of voters.

But less than one month later we have Michael Isikoff warning that unnamed intelligence officials are warning about Russian efforts to rig the election. He made the following key points:

U.S. intelligence officials have told key members of Congress that they are trying to determine whether Carter Page, an American businessman identified as a Trump foreign policy advisers, opened up private communications with senior Russian officials

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking minority member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee — released a joint statement stating that, "we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election."

U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.

U.S. intelligence agencies have also received reports that Page met with another top Putin aide while in Moscow — Igor Diveykin.

It is important to note that at least two of the sources for Isikoff were FBI paid intelligence asset, Christopher Steele and persons from the US intelligence agencies. It is not the FBI that is telling "key members of Congress" about Carter Page. And it is "intelligence reports" that are cited, not FBI personnel, in identifying Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin as the Russians Page met with.

This is where it gets dicey for former CIA Director John Brennan.

The information about Igor Sechin and Igor Divyekin appears in the Steele Dossier in report 2016/94 (dated 19 July 2016). This information was cited as well in the FISA application that the FBI submitted to the FIS Court in October. No other source of intelligence, such as SIGINT from NSA or HUMINT from CIA. If such information had existed it would have been cited in the classified FISA application. It was not.

So how did John Brennan know about Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin. We now know that Brennan was the one who briefed Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid in August 2016. Paul Sperry reports:

On Aug. 25, 2016, for example, the CIA chief gave an unusual private briefing to then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in which he told Reid the Russians were backing Trump and that the FBI would have to take the lead in an investigation because the FBI is the federal agency in charge of domestic intelligence . . . .

I have recently become concerned that the threat of the Russian government tampering in our presidential election is more extensive than widely known and may include the intent to falsify official election results. The evidence of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump's presidential campaign continues to mount . . . .

Further, there have been a series of disturbing reports suggesting other methods Russia is using to influence the Trump campaign and manipulate it as a vehicle for advancing the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin. For example, questions have been raised about whether a Trump advisor who has been highly critical of U.S. and European economic sanctions on Russia, and who has conflicts of interest due to investments in Russian energy conglomerate Gazprom, met with high-ranking sanctioned individuals while in Moscow in July of 2016, well after Trump became the presumptive Republican nominee. (The same individual recently broke precedent by giving a speech critical of U.S. policy while in Moscow.)

If James Comey had been the source of this information then Reid certainly would have referenced that in his letter. He did not.

What is so curious about all of this is the lack of a formal response by the intelligence community. In other words, if the Russians really were in a full court press beyond their normal propaganda activities, then the intelligence community should have been galvanized to collect more information and should have briefed the leaders of the Senate and House intelligence committees. That did not happen. Key Republican leaders DID NOT, I repeat NOT, receive such a briefing. For example, Devin Nunes, the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, did not get briefed by Brennan or any of his minions on this subject.

And where was Jim Clapper. If the CIA Director is raising the warning that Russia is marauding through our electoral system like some rapacious pirate, then it was up to the Director of National Intelligence, to make sure the President was briefed and that the vested intelligence agencies were alerted and focused on dealing with this new threat. That did not happen.

Barack Obama provides the final proof that the Russia threat was bullshit when he responded to Trump's persistent claim that there was an attempt to rig the election (which we now know is true). On October 18, 2016 (two days after the FBI submitted a FISA application insisting that Russia was meddling in the election via Donald Trump), Obama called Trump a crazy whiner:

"It doesn't really show the kind of leadership and toughness that you'd want out of a president. You start whining before the game's even over? If whenever things are going badly for you and you lose you start blaming somebody else? Then you don't have what it takes to be in this job," Obama said.

And he said the warnings of a "rigged election" are entirely unprecedented in modern American political history.

"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections and the election process before votes have even taken place. It's unprecedented,"

Early last August (2016), an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides.

Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

There was no other intelligence source besides the Christopher Steele dossier for this information. And, thanks to the unwitting reporters of the Washington Post, Barack Obama, courtesy of John Brennan, read what existed at that time of the Steele Dossier.

The list of people who will be investigated keeps growing. That list now includes the names of the most elite members of the Obama Administration's intelligence, law enforcement and White House personnel--Jim Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, and even Barack Obama himself.

Comments

Pieces of the Coup Puzzle Fall Into Place by Publius Tacitus

Most people, including many of you, have the memory of an Alzheimer's patient when it comes to putting events into their proper historical context. So let me help. Do you remember when Donald Trump first started talking about the Presidential election being possibly rigged? That was in early August 2016. He said:

"I'm afraid the election's going to be rigged. I have to be honest," Trump told voters in Ohio, a crucial swing state. . . . Trump added that he has heard "more and more" that the November election will be rigged -- suggesting to his supporters that the outcome of the election is out of the hands of voters.

But less than one month later we have Michael Isikoff warning that unnamed intelligence officials are warning about Russian efforts to rig the election. He made the following key points:

U.S. intelligence officials have told key members of Congress that they are trying to determine whether Carter Page, an American businessman identified as a Trump foreign policy advisers, opened up private communications with senior Russian officials

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, ranking minority member on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee — released a joint statement stating that, "we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election."

U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate and former Russian deputy prime minister who is now the executive chairman of Rosneft, Russian’s leading oil company, a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News.

U.S. intelligence agencies have also received reports that Page met with another top Putin aide while in Moscow — Igor Diveykin.

It is important to note that at least two of the sources for Isikoff were FBI paid intelligence asset, Christopher Steele and persons from the US intelligence agencies. It is not the FBI that is telling "key members of Congress" about Carter Page. And it is "intelligence reports" that are cited, not FBI personnel, in identifying Igor Sechin and Igor Diveykin as the Russians Page met with.